Thank You For Loving Me
by AshenWolf
Summary: Set after the war is over, Severus speaks to the one he loves at his final resting place: Rosemary Lawns Cemetery. Sad, Character Death and Slash. SSHP Slasher Ship. Severus is somewhat out of character. Inspired By Bon Jovi's Song of the same name.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing, but the way I wrote this out. So don't sue.**

**A/N:** Please Read and Review! I get discouraged from lack of reviews…commentary would be preferred and loved, but simple reviews are good too, So please press the little purplish-blue button at the bottom! Thank You. **– AshenWolf –**

**Story:** Thank You for Loving Me

**Authoress:** AshenWolf

**Rating:** PG-13

**Warnings:** Some mild Swearing. Character death. OCness.

**Pairing:** SS/HP No like, No Read. I'm a Major Slasher

**Completed:** July 08, 2005 (Book 6 out in 8 more days!)

**Summary:** Set after the war is over, Severus speaks to the one he loves at his final resting place: Rosemary Lawns Cemetery. Sad, Character Death and Slash. SS/HP Slasher Ship. Severus is somewhat out of character.

"**Thank You for Loving Me" by AshenWolf.**

The soft wind blew his long black hair around his tired, worn face. His visage was forlorn and his beetle black eyes were red around the edges from endless tears. He watched as a street light nearby the desolate place fazed in and out, causing the shadows to jump, before focusing on a white rose held in his fine, long fingered hands. Without bringing up his gaze, he began to speak.

"I know you must be mad at me for not being here earlier, but I'm sorry. I would have, but we agreed to keep our relationship a secret, no? Who would expect _me_ to come see you off? After all, I do… did '_hate_' you." A small sad smile donned his usually severe lips.

"You know better then anyone that it's hard for me to say the things I want to tell you most of the time… but now… it's just not so hard anymore." Wetness began to gather at the very rim of his eyelids, but the liquid did not fall.

He made a small show of gazing around as if looking to see what he already knew. He wouldn't be here if there were others even remotely in the vicinity. "No one's around. It's just you and me now. Everyone's gone home already, I'm not afraid to say anything to you any longer."

"It's actually quite heartrending how only now you will hear this. I'm sorry it's kind of late." Potion's Master extraordinaire, Severus Snape dropped slowly to his knees and let his eyes look up into the dreary sky filled with strangely calm storm clouds. He knew that his black trousers would be extremely dirty from the freshly turned dirt he knelt on, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

"I just want to say thank you for saving me from others… as well as from myself. For just being there when I needed you most."

He laughed slightly, but his guffaw held no amusement, just bitter regret and utter melancholy. A lone tear fell and left a thick track down his left, pale cheek. The broken old street light began to flicker once more, but he paid it no mind this time.

"Remember… seven months ago, when you mucked up my potion with your Gryffindor stupidity and you were too scared to tell me. Then, sometime later, when I added the Boomslang Skin to finish it off and send the healing potion off to Poppy, the damned thing blew up in my face."

"I should have noticed the discrepancy before hand, but I didn't." He sighed heavily and shadowed his troubled eyes with a shaky hand. "It left me blind for three weeks." Bringing his hand down, he wiped away the slow trail of saline the tear left behind.

Severus snorted softly. "I know I should blame you, but I don't. It was the best thing that ever happened to me." Another tear joined the first, but he didn't bother wiping it away. "It brought me closer to you."

He sat on his heels and tipped his head to the side letting the wind brush his face, cooling the warm liquid in his eyes and on his ashen cheeks. It left a small sting of coldness, but it was ignored. The unpredictable element began to pick up, effectively warning any sane person that rain was to fall soon. Severus couldn't care much about it though; his aching heart clouded his judgment of what was common sense and what was not.

"I remember yelling and insulting you and about everything else I could think of… if only to get rid of you, but nothing worked. You just…stayed and it annoyed me to no end, I'll assure you." The extremely small smile he had lost some time ago graced his stony features one more.

His black pools steered themselves forward, but they were glazed in memories of yesterday and all the days before. The twilight was already fading into deeper night, but he paid it no mind. He was silent for many minutes before he decided to begin depressing dialogue yet again.

"But then without warning… it seemed to change. Every time you helped me get here or there or brought me this or that… I started to resent you less and less. I started to crave your touch more and more. More and more I wanted you to be there. More and more I felt sadness take me each and every night you left to your own quarters. Every time you left me… my heart ached terribly. More and more I felt the absolute loneliness that had always been within me and had only been too stubborn to realize it was there at all."

More tears fell and once more he ignored them as he focused on the deep pink of the sky on the horizon. Severus paused in his soliloquy to catch some much needed breath and to stifle the sobs in his heaving chest. He had never truly mastered the art of silent crying, much to his private dismay. He pursed his lips together in unvoiced anguish.

"I thought I could just about die… when I realized… that I was beginning to fall for you. It scared me more then anything else… even more then when the Dark Lord would call for me."

Unable to entirely quill his sobs, he let out a great gasp for air and a small strangled noise escaped his throat.

"I was even harsher with you…hoping I could eradicate the feelings before they took hold of me completely. But it was already too late. I… my heart… was taken. The feelings never left… and neither did you."

The flower in his hand began to twirl with the movements of his fingers and he seemingly became entranced by the simple movement. The blood read swirls that decorated the white petals helped with the small hypnotizing effect.

"In fact you began to stay with me in the nights as well. I wanted to rip your head off for doing that to me, but I knew that deep inside all I really wanted was to kiss you… to just hold you close as I slept." His voice rose in slight indignation placed solely on his own self.

"Merlin, I swear I fell in love with you the day you made me blind… as crazy as that may sound." He closed his black eyes to stop the trance he had gone into with the steady twirling of the item in his fingers, yet he did not stop the flora's ballet. He sighed softly as he gathered his thoughts.

"I guess I'm just trying to say thank you for being my eyes when I couldn't see… and for giving me the chance to be with you." He abruptly stopped the dancing hybrid in his hands and placed it gently on the black dirt in front of him.

"I couldn't breathe until you came to me." He blinked slowly and felt the now well known feeling of heat rush from the corners of his eyes.

"I wasn't truly living. Sure my body functioned and my heart continued to beat, but I wasn't alive. The last seven months were the happiest of my life. I doubt very much, if I'll ever be that happy again." There were now several drenched spots on the loose dirt before his knees.

Severus crossed his black clad arms and hugged himself as he closed his eyes briefly in pain. "Why did you have to risk your own life to rescue me? Why? I would have been okay." He knew he was lying, but the pain in his heart was so fresh.

"I would have gotten away. I know I could've…. Damn it all." Severus wiped furiously at his cheeks and eyes as he angrily got up to his feet. Abruptly, his fury left him just as rapidly as it had come on to him.

He swiped his now running nose clean as he momentarily reveled in the sting that the wind provided in the growing darkness. Severus could now understand why many people reduced themselves to cutting and scaring the flesh. Physical pain was so much more bearable then emotional hurt.

"Okay, I lied, but you should not have died. I know you took the Dark Lord with you in your fight, but you should have let him kill me first when he found me out as the traitor, instead of acting on your Gryffindor rashness. At least then, I'd be with you and not this sobbing mess like some substandard Hufflepuff."

His tone had changed from delicate and frail to outright distaste and self abhorrence. He hated himself for being so weak. It would seem that his moods were shifting with the ever-changing winds that swirled around him.

"You were the only one who could see through my disguise as the 'great greasy git.' I tried so hard to fool you like I have done all the others, but you weren't fooled… at least not since the potion incident."

Still unable to look straight ahead at his love he faced away and sat Indian Style in the same spot he had kneeled before. He breathing in harshly in an effort to clear his nose and paused a moment to clear the saline tracks that had finally made their presence forcefully known.

"You were just so bloody infuriating sometimes and just plain old stubborn, and despite the obvious Gryffindor inflicted features… I found you undeniably appealing. A Slytherin falling for a Gryffindor. The irony."

Silence reigned once more for many minutes and the darkness had almost completely taken hold now. There was barely a shimmer of light in the distance that could be seen if you strained your eyes hard enough. The streetlamp had ceased its flickering dance and settled on staying a faint, dying glow.

"Thank you for not believing my lies… and seeing me for who I am. Don't worry love, no one ever will again." He chuckled again, but there was just a hint of amusement this time or perhaps… a distant taunting.

"Well maybe someone will. After all, if a lowly lion could break through a snake's exterior… why not?" The small smile he had acquired stayed on his soft lips as his mind drifted to better times.

"Remember three weeks ago, when we went flying in the middle of the night over the Forbidden Forest?" The Potions Master sharply in took the air around him as he forced his sadness from activating his ever-filled water reserves.

"I kept telling you I didn't want to go… that it was too late and that it was our duty as professors to roam the halls and dock points from the foolhardy Gryffindors that dared in their infinite brazenness to be out after curfew." He sighed loudly and rolled his drained eyes as he let his legs loose and stretched them out in front of him. Absentmindedly he swiped the dirt from his knees.

"Of course after some theatrics on your part about how I mistreated Gryffindors, you forced the flying issue…." He clasped his hands in front of him and idly let his fingers on his right hand and those on his left fight each other.

Exhaling noisily and deeply to release raw emotion, he let a slow smirk emerge. "Of course, you just had to out one of my deepest secrets. No one, but my dead mother, even knew." He scoffed. "That hidden Slytherin nature in you always won out somehow. Only you could figure out that the most hated professor to ever walk the halls of Hogwarts was dreadfully afraid of heights; let's not even mention the thought of being hundreds of yards in the air with nothing but a thin piece of wood supporting my very existence."

He bit his lower lip unconsciously. "Of course you forced this acrophobic down to the pitch so you could somehow 'save me' from my fear. After all, how could the lover of a Quidditch Star Extraordinaire be afraid of flying? The embarrassment!"

The man's frame of mind mimicked the erratic workings of the gently lighted street lantern that once again began its struggle to survive. "Thoughts of wanting to hug or kiss you went away the moment we went of the ground on your infamous Firebolt. All I could do for several moments was restrain myself from choking the life out of you. Well, the knowledge that if I murdered you in the air, I would be signing my own death warrant, helped with my restraint."

Severus's drying eyes, grew wet once more and he closed his eyes to shield the release of his internal grief. "Yet, once I got the urge to massacre you out of my system, I felt nothing but safe as I held onto you. I knew deep down, that I felt completely safe with you because I trusted you implicitly. I loved you and I knew you loved me too. There was no way you would let me fall."

"Thank you for giving me wings, when I couldn't fly." He blindly reached behind him and picked up the abandoned flower with his slightly dirty hands. He gazed at the blossom for mere seconds before bringing it up to his nose and wafted in the scent it emitted. It had always been his love's favorite bloom and it was now Severus's flower of choice because of that.

"You know, you were my dream." He scoffed slightly. "I never even knew I had one, but I imagine I must have had one deep down, because you brought it into reality." He dropped his hand slowly to his lap giving great care not to harm the rose, the symbol of his love for his lover.

"You were perfect in every way. You did things for me that others would perceive as trivial, but the small gestures are always the most cherished. Just being there at the end of the day was more then enough, but you went out of your way to be near me… to please me." The stinging behind his eyes had dimmed some and his subconscious realized that he was beginning to numb. He knew it wasn't healthy, but it didn't matter anyway.

He was truly alone now. Nobody would care if he was retreated back into the shell that he had begun to crawl out of. Severus was willing to bet that most people hardly noticed any change in him at all. Not because it was so subtle not to notice, but because no on ever felt enough affection for him to care. No one would notice because they hardly noticed him unless he was snapping at them.

"You always lifted me up when I fell down, especially in those first few months, when I was convinced you would leave me for someone else... for someone nicer, more handsome… heck… just someone closer to your age. I was drowning in worry and agonizing over something that you would never do… that you promised you wouldn't."

His numbness completely took hold of him and his once stinging heartache was a dull throbbing in his chest. His onyx orbs seemed dead and his countenance was set in a rigid expression that he hadn't really let out for months now. He held his hands loosely together and he seemingly stared at nothing in particular.

"Well, I know you didn't mean to, but you broke your promise. Don't worry love, I in no way blame you. There are… were many deaths in the war, both you and I were just unfortunate." He slowly turned to face his lover once and for all. No longer could he force himself not to look. Sitting on his knees once more he squint his tired eyes and could only barely make out the epitaph with the low-key illumination of the muggle lamp.

"Here lies Harry James Potter. Boy Who Lived. Son to few. Brother to some. Friend to many. Savior to all. He saved life by giving his own. July 31st, 1980 – July 6th, 2005."

Though hard to read, the words were carved into Severus's soul. He would never be able to burn the image of the highly decorated stone that officially proclaimed his Harry's life to be void. Nor would he forget the numerous and countless blooms and cards that were strewn all over the grave site, no matter how hard he would try in the future. He vaguely noticed that none of the elaborate bouquets and garlands held a single white, red-swirled rose.

A slight crunching pain broke through his numbness as he realized that no one, but he, knew of Harry's favorite flower. No one had gotten close enough to Harry to care. He realized that though there were immeasurable amounts of people that paid their respects for their fallen hero, no one '_truly_' loved him for who he was... not even his best friends. The world only cared for "whom" he was to them… their savior. For the first time, he understood that his love was just as lonely as he had been when they got together.

Before his protective shell could collapse, he clung to it and forced his emotions aside. There were some benefits to knowing occlumency and tricks of the mind. It helped you shove all your pain aside and he did just that. His dulled existence was once more in effect and he almost sagged in the reprieve it brought him.

He slowly withdrew his ebony wand and brought it forward in front of him. Reading the epitaph one last time, he added three short words at the very end. Charming it so that his message could not be spelled off, he placed the bloom that still resided in his free hand down gently up against the grave stone.

"Harry, all I have left to give you… well it isn't much. I can only hope that my words will somehow reach you." Severus unhurriedly got to his feet dusting himself off involuntarily. He stared at the stone that he could no longer read, for it was nothing more then a shadow in the moon's glow that was currently inflicted with the storm clouds that had only groaned but a few times throughout the visit. The street lamp off on the side was now all but out.

"Thank you… for loving me. I cherished you… and I will continue to do so." Turning away he said, "Don't get too lonely. I'll visit you again soon darling beloved."

Even as he walked away in the stride of a man who had somewhere to be, but truly didn't need to be anywhere, he knew that what he had promised his love would not come to pass. He would never come back. He couldn't. If he did, the defensive armor he constructed would fall, and he would be unable to repair it. Not again. He only hoped his Harry would forgive him when they met once more in the afterlife.

His stride faltered slightly just as he reached the gated entrance to "Rosemary Lawns Cemetery," yet he continued without a second glance behind to see his Harry for one last time. Just as the gate closed softly behind his retreating form, the blackest of clouds in the sky gave an almighty snap and gave way to its urgency to cry on the peaceful city below.

It was symbolically fitting it seemed, for the first cloud to give in and break, rested over the very place the dark haired man had been kneeling before, right upon the grave of one Harry James Potter.

As the water poured forth thunder could be heard and lightning seen. The skies wept for the star-crossed romance that had shattered way before its time. They wept for the loss of a man who not only had the darkest of hair and the greenest of eyes, but had the biggest of hearts known to man. The wind howled at the injustice granted to a man who gave all his love to the undeserving world, but barely ever received love from it.

Standing stalk still and leaning only slightly on the barred fencing on the outside of the very corner of the cemetery, Severus Snape once again could not help but voice the gnawing question in his mind. 'Will Harry ever forgive me for not returning?' His long greasy hair dripped with the water nature offered, plastering it to his colorless, sallow face. The tears of the heavens ran down the contours of his visage mingling with the dried tracks left from his own.

It was impossible to tell if he was perhaps crying in the current inclement weather. His chest no longer heaved in the odd and unpredictable movement of letting go grief, nor did his tense shoulders shake uncontrollably. He was the perfect image of a stone stature baring the rain with a straight face, not caring if it would continue on or pass.

Lightning was erratic and wild and the thunder deafening, and yet he didn't bat an eyelash or wince from the sound on his eardrums. He continued walking on to find a safe place from apparition back to his quarters at Hogwarts. Just as he passed the dimmed lighted lamp, a curious thing happened.

The street lamp gave a violent burst of energy, illuminating the whole street and part of the cemetery. There was no expression change on his face, but the smallest of glints could be seen in his deadened eyes. The glint was of a hope that the lamp indicated the answer to his silent question. Yes, Perhaps Harry would forgive him.

With that Severus left the cemetery, the street, and the city all together to only arrive at his drearily dark rooms that spoke volumes of loneliness to those who would care enough to listen.

The rain, back in the city, continued its wailing and the resulting tears seemed to flow down the freshly cut stone of the grave Severus left behind. The glow from the newly performing street lantern shed its radiance on the three words that Severus had written in a fine calligraphy.

When the man wrote them he never knew nor could he phantom the hundreds of hearts that would break upon reading them. Nor did he realize the many more that would be angered by such audacity shown towards the people of Britain. No, Severus didn't know, but neither did he care. For he meant everything he wrote and he believed in it.

Better then that, he knew that the trio of words held truth.

"Beloved to One" shone proudly and boldly from the moment of the inscription's birth until many years later and beyond. They were never removed, nor were they ever credited to the one whom inscribed them, for that little fact continued on to remain a mystery that nagged at the minds of many.

Of course, who would have thought that is was none other then Severus Snape, the great bat of Hogwarts, whom had stolen and kept the young man's heart and in return gave his own to the savior of the Wizarding world.

No, no one would ever know, but it never truly mattered.

Some saw the true story written in those words. One lover was dead, the other living. They didn't care who it was that loved Harry Potter, only that he was loved by someone and that someone loved in return. Those select few understood that there was only one story sadder then a love torn apart by war and death… the story of a human being whom never experienced love at all.

– **Fin – **

July 08, 2005.

**Remember to R and R!** Please with extra sugar and a nice red, seedless cherry on top! And a cup of coffee if you would like one. . **– AW –**


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